Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Our favorite commies

It pays to have 1.3 billion consumers, as China has learned. Abuse human rights all you want, and we'll look the other way, as long as you keep opening McDonald's in Tiananmen Square (and elsewhere). The wife of a Chinese AIDS activist missing for over a month said on Tuesday she was no closer to discovering his whereabouts despite repeated requests to the police and state security apparatus for information.

The 32-year-old Hu Jia went missing after going on a hunger strike with several others to protest what they said was the government's hiring of thugs to beat up civil rights campaigner Yang Maodong in the southern province of Guangdong in February.

Don't expect any apologies forthcoming from the brutal Chinese dictatorship.

A spokesman for China's foreign ministry said he had no information on Hu's case, which has attracted the attention of Amnesty International and UNAIDS.

"China is a country ruled by law and Chinese judicial departments dealing with those who breach the law is a matter of China's sovereignty," Qin Gang told a regular news conference when later asked about the continuing arrest of dissidents.

Another person who vanished at the same time as Hu was Qi Zhiyong, whose left leg was amputated after he was hit by a soldier's bullet during the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Troublesome, but as long as you keep buying our McNuggets, we're cool.